Press

Game of Thrones actor Will Tudor to star in ITV’s Torvill and Dean drama

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s rise to Olympic figure skating glory is to be retold in a one-off ITV drama.

Will Tudor, from Game of Thrones and Humans, will play Dean, while Ackley Bridge’s Poppy Lee Friar plays Torvill.

The two-hour drama will show the duo’s early years leading up to their gold medal in the 1984 Winter Olympics.

“We feel very honoured that ITV have commissioned this film based on what was a very significant period in each of our lives,” Torvill and Dean said.

The pair, who are both from Nottingham, claimed Olympic glory in Sarajevo with their famous performance to Ravel’s Bolero.

According to ITV, the drama will tell of “the creative impetus that finally drove them to become ice dancing royalty”.

It will also tell of their “humble beginnings”, their clash of temperaments and how they “together tried to establish a new language for ice dance”.

Anita Dobson, Stephen Tompkinson and Jaime Winstone will also appear in the drama, to be written by William Ivory.

Ivory, whose credits include 2010 film Made in Dagenham, said Torvill and Dean were “real artists… engaging in deeply felt creative and emotional battles”.

The writer spent many hours talking to his subjects, who said they had “thoroughly enjoyed… sharing experiences of our passion for skating, the life-long friendship that came through our sport and everything that it took to achieve our eventual goal of becoming Olympic champions”.

Gillies MacKinnon, whose films include Hideous Kinky and last year’s Whisky Galore remake, will direct the drama, which will begin filming later this month.

Torvill and Dean officially retired in 1998 and now act as coaches on ITV’s Dancing On Ice.

Second Series For NYMR’s Television Programme

The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) has announced the second series of ‘The Yorkshire Steam Railway: All Aboard’ television programme has been commissioned.

Series two will include six episodes for Channel 5, which will air in 2019.

Filming begins today (Friday 13th July).

Last March the programme reached over 3.5 million, over three episodes, with 1.5 million viewers tuning in to episode 1 and again over a million in episode 2.

Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd (DSP) will be returning to the railway to produce series two, which will include the railways favourite characters, major events, every day running and everything in between.

Chris Price, General Manager at NYMR, said:

“The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is currently having an exceptionally busy season and we are pleased to announce that we are 13% up compared with last year.

The increase in passengers travelling along the line has been a combination of the television programme and the recent great weather.

This is great news as the railway is a not for profit charity and every passenger that travels along the line is helping to preserve the railway for future generations to enjoy.”

For more information about the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, or to book tickets, please visit nymr.co.uk.

Project Interior (w/t; 8 x 60 minutes) will feature 10 budding designers competing for the opportunity to land a design contract from a prestigious commercial client.

Each episode of the primetime series will see the designers tasked with completing eight weekly challenges as they transform a new space by showing off their design skills, with one designer eliminated each week ahead of the final.

Working in teams, the designers will work under pressure to overhaul real businesses, revamp commercial spaces and restyle family homes. In addition, they will have to manage fellow designers, a team of tradespeople and demanding clients, all while working to exacting specifications and testing briefs.

Project Interior will first launch in its entirety across the BBC before rolling out globally, to all territories (excluding the UK for the first 12 months), on Netflix.

“We’re delighted to be working with the BBC and Netflix to bring fresh ambition and scale to the much loved interiors space,” said DSP’s co-MD Donna Clark in a statement. “This exciting new series will be packed with famous faces for the world of design and give real insight into an industry most of us never get to experience.”